It was named after the village of Craigellachie on the River Spey in Moray, Scotland, the ancestral home of Sir George Stephen, the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). At a critical time in the railway's development, Stephen travelled to Britain to raise desperately needed capital funding; when he succeeded, he telegraphed his associates in Canada quoting the familiar motto of Clan Grant: "Stand fast, Craigellachie!"